Hannah Waddingham says being 'waterboarded for 10 hours' filming Game of Thrones left her with claustrophobia

3 April 2024, 15:51

Hannah Waddingham has recalled how she was waterboarded for 10 hours while filming Game of Thrones which has left her suffering from claustrophobia.

The Ted Lasso actress, 49, claimed that her portrayal of Septa Unella in the HBO hit fantasy series, left her with long-lasting damage.

In season six, Unella is tortured by a vengeful Cersei Lannister (Lena Headey), who pours a jug of wine onto her.

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Recalling her experience while appearing on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, she began: "Thrones gave me something I wasn't expecting from it and that is chronic claustrophobia.

"I have talked about it since with David Benioff and Dan Weiss, the two exec producers on it, I was like, 'Good job it's for them because it was horrific.'

"[I had] 10 hours of being actually waterboarded, like actually waterboarded."

She went on: "The reason why I don’t believe (the show) is touched yet in terms of the cinematography of it for a series, it’s just a different level. But with that comes actual waterboarding.

"So I'm strapped to a table with all these leather straps and I couldn't lift up my head because they said that was going to be too obvious that it's loose and I was like, 'Right, I'd quite like them to be loose'.

"I'm on my way back and I'm in this fancy-pants lift and my hair's already bleached to death (but) I have grape juice all in my hair so it went purple, I couldn't speak because the Mountain had his hand over his mouth while I was screaming and I had strap marks all over me like I'd been attacked...

"The lift doors open and one of the other guys who's been filming something else is like, 'What happened to you?'

"I told him everything and he went, 'You're lucky, I've just been crawling on my elbows in s**t for four days'. But it kind of doesn't matter on Thrones."

The Ted Lasso and The Fall Guy actress has talked about shooting the scene in the past on Collider Ladies Night, during which she said it was second only to childbirth in being the worst day of her life.

“Lena was uncomfortable pouring liquid in my face for that long, and I was beside myself,” she said. “But in those moments, you go, ‘Do you serve the piece and get on with it?’ Or do you chicken out and go, ‘This isn’t what I signed up for.'”